


Covered in the Colors

by Achicleos



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Drug Abuse, Gen, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 07:35:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7835866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achicleos/pseuds/Achicleos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's trip through drug abuse. Allison's undying resilience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Covered in the Colors

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back to Stuff Done At 2AM.  
> Right so this came from a headcanon (all my Jack stuff is headcanon (thanks, Nora)) done with a friend that Allison takes to Jack pretty well. She recognizes a hot head and she's well informed how to deal with one. It's not surprising that her and Jack form something of a friendship. When Jack's pill addiction comes back, well, you'll see. Let's just say she isn't unfamiliar with how to deal with that, either.

You're eleven when the doctor hands your uncle the bottle. It's the ugliest color of orange you've ever seen. You watch their hands pass, the grim looks on their faces. You catch a glimpse of the blue of the pills, blue as a sky or blue as eyes rimmed in red and you think, _my doctor hates me_.  
You're twelve when you buy it off someone else. They aren't blue, or in an ugly little bottle. You can't pronounce the name of these, either. You grow out of the speech impediment by fourteen, but by then you barely ever speak. By then it's always something yelled. It was always forgivable – he saw so many bad things he's a victim he needs time he's coping – you almost wish they'd tell you to shut up. They don't. Small towns never let you forget.  
You're fifteen when you realize where you're going. Doped off your feet with too many different chemicals to tell red from blue, but you see black. You see a perfect number 2 inked onto the cheek of a star and from there the hardest part was after cold turkey. Once, if once was done more then once, you see an aspirin bottle and want to feel something roll around on your tongue. You want to stop feeling so alive.  
You're sixteen when someone at a party says, "You joining us?" With a chipped bowl filled to the brim with all sorts of possibilities stretched out to you. Reaching for you, taunting to grind the pathetic hope inside you to a fine powder. This is what made you different from him, the pills. You can almost hear him grinning, almost smell the rot on his gums. He used to say, "He's gonna be just like his daddy."  
"Everyone ends up like their parents," she says when you're sixteen, nose stuck up in the air, turned around in her chair and talking to the pretty redhead on your right. The bile in your throat tastes blue. Your gums tastes like rot. You go home and brush your teeth for an hour, lift weights until you can't feel your arms, then your legs. You fall asleep tasting sweat and mouthwash.  
You're eighteen when you step on Palmetto State campus. It is not where you were going to go, but you have to follow the green. Orange everywhere; the color of a pill bottle; but at least it wasn't blue. They don't like you, you aren't surprised. You're only here for him. He is _green_. But there is also blue, and red, and orange, and something one could call white (or transparent) and even black. There is something warmer, farther from blue than the sun to the sky. She burns, because she looks at you like she knows.  
Of course, the lie is also here. He who stole the light of 2, he with eyes so blue you can't look at them directly. Later, he will mock you for it. You'll retaliate, and he'll hit you for it. Later still, you'll think of being hit while you swallow something green and white.  
Back and forth for months you go. _Get over yourself– become someone new!_ She's screaming. _It's not that simple!_ You're screaming. She's with you, she can't look at you, she's seeing someone else, she's seeing you for the first time, but never do you hear her walk away. No matter how long your back is turned. It hurts, and she knows.  
You're nearly nineteen when a man in an alley stops blowing you just long enough to say, "You know what would make this better?" He isn't wrong. Nothing feels better than an old scar being scratched. Nothing feels better than not feeling at all. Nothing feels better than one, two, more and more until they replace your food. Crushed in a smoothie, a glass of water, swallow them dry.  
You're half dead when she says, "I fucking told you no one is going to die this year!" She's tearing apart your room. She's pouring it all in the toilet. Her rage is rage, true and gold. You've never seen gold anger before. You're on the couch with your back slouched and your head down. The air is rancid with something like regret, something like life, out of hand. Says you, "I thought I said no promises?" She’s surprised you can speak.  
Through hell you walked again, this time dragged behind a pair of heels that had been threatened to be put through your neck too many times for two hands. Was it really coming clean if you had to do it twice? If you couldn't make it the first time around, who's to say this one is worth it? She's out of focus. You've got a needle in your arm and she doesn't quite look angry. She says, "It's worth it." You never remember the rest.

**Author's Note:**

> After I finished writing this I realized Jack is somewhat [read: Loads] synesthesiac with color, hence the title.


End file.
